Gardening is not some sort of game by which one proves his superiority over others, nor is it a marketplace for the display of elegant things that others cannot afford. It is, on the contrary, a growing work of creation, endless in its changing elements. It is not a monument or an achievement, but a sort of traveling, a kind of pilgrimage you might say, often a bit grubby and sweaty, though true pilgrams do not mind that. A garden is not a picture, but a language, which is of course the major art of life.

—From The Essential Earthman by famed Washington Post Garden Columnist Henry Mitchell. Sent in by Jayne Laliberte of Washington, NC.